A Hermit's Guide to Moving Forward
by Grassycheesecake
Summary: Ingredients: 1.) John Egbert, depressed lighthouse keeper 2.) Aradia Megido, formerly dead paranormal enthusiast 3.) A massive storm 4.) Sea salt. So much goddamn sea salt Instructions: Place John and Aradia into an isolated lighthouse. Shake well, then let marinate together for about a month. Add the storm when things start to get bitter, and season liberally with salt.
1. The First Storm

Along the westmost coastline of the United States, where the forest melts to shoreline that melts to sea, countless lighthouses can be found. Most of these had been long since automated by the time the internet was born, but a few remained untouched by the winds of change. Glanced over by the government for lack of funds, their keepers were left tending to their lights in the absolute isolation of a life bound to devoted to centuries old tradition.

John Egbert was one of those keepers. He lived in and watched over a remote lighthouse on the coast of Washington state. His life there was ruled by a routine of work as unrelenting as the endless churning of the waves outside until, one night, one stormy night like hundreds of others that had come and gone before, his routine was broken.

The night of the change began, as many of John's nights did, with work. His daytime tasks done, he'd retreated to the shed on the edge of his beach to work on a personal project: the reconstruction of a boat.

He was working on a mid-sized skiff. It boasted a captain's seat with steering, a large motor, and space for two rows of bench seats. Everything was assembled save for the empty place where one of the benches was meant to fit. Much of the wood looked very worn, and some of the planks appeared to be different types of wood than the rest.

With a series of hefts, John lowered the skiff from its supports, flipped it over, and lifted it back up one side at a time. After a few adjustments, he had it balanced upside-down on the supports, its bottom sitting just above his waist.

He paused for a moment then, looking up to the window to ensure that the lighthouse was still piercing bright through the gloomy evening drizzle. It was. John straightened up and went to grab a sheet of sandpaper from his workbench, then circled the skiff again. Once he found a place to stand where he could keep a good view of the light, he leaned over and began to work.

About an hour later, he had the whole outside of the skiff sanded and ready for paint primer. He checked the time as he finished, seeing that it was almost time to do his first round of nightly checks and readings. With a sigh, he set down the sandpaper, turned off the shed light, and pulled on his raincoat in anticipation of the journey back to the house.

When he opened the door, John's world exploded into a cacophony of noise. The rhythmic patter-pat of raindrops on the roof became the wild roar of churning waves and downpour, the whistle of the wind became a shiver-inducing scream. He grimaced as icy drops began to spatter his face, pulling up his hood and beginning his jog back to the house. He glanced behind him as he ran, wanting to ensure that the shed door had pulled closed all the way behind him. It had, but that wasn't the thing that caught his eye.

Between the crests of waves, he spotted a mass of something black and gray. It didn't look like any debris or driftwood he'd ever seen before, and with a horrible crashing sensation, he realized what it was. There was a person drowning in the storm.

John froze for a moment, caught in the terror of the waves. His mind was filled with boats dashed on rocks, with helpless sailors disappearing into waves not unlike the ones in front of him. He had seen this before, he thought, and he was helpless.

He looked back to the lighthouse then, at the steady tower that he had lived and worked around for his entire life. He thought of how his dad had always talked about the house, about his duty. It was there to help those who would otherwise be lost to the waves, and as its keeper, as a part of the house, so was he.

John gritted his teeth and, quick as he could, pulled off his coat, shirt, shoes, and glasses. He waited then, breath heavy as the rain drilled into him. He needed a break in the waves and, before too long, he found one. The tossing chaos settled into the briefest moment of relative calm, and John launched himself into the ocean toward the body.

The water hit him hard, slamming in from all sides and burning his throat with salt water as it tried to choke him and knock him from his feet. He half swam, half flailed his way onward anyway, jaw clenched as the cold overwhelmed him. It was hard to even see his hair as it was slicked down in front of his eyes, let alone the body he was searching for.

Then, through the chaos, he spotted it. John flung himself forward, grabbing at the dark shape in front of him and twisting in search of any frantic glimpse of shore. He was half blind and losing strength fast, and he realized that he wouldn't be able to find his way back alone. Instead, he turned his eyes upward as he struggled, waiting for the darkness to break.

The beam of the lighthouse cut through the storm, filling the world with light. John broke the rhythm of his desperate tread and kicked off toward the light with everything he had. The body made it even more difficult to move, though, and he felt like he was making little progress. There was a voice in the back of his head urging, screaming at him to drop the body and fend for himself. The person's skin was cold, the voice said, and it hadn't moved at all since he had taken hold of it. As noble as his intentions were, there was no point to throwing his life away for a corpse. John's grip on the body began to slip.

The lighthouse flashed again over the ocean. In the instant of illumination, John realized that he had gotten closer to shore than he'd thought. He tightened his grip, pulling the body over his shoulders in a makeshift fireman's carry and dragging himself through the water with his legs and free arm. He pushed on, and the relentless pounding of waves fell to chest, waist, knee level. Finally, chest heaving, John dropped the body and collapsed onto the beach in a fit of coughs. His lungs burned and his body ached, but the ground below him was solid.

Once the air began to rake through his lungs at something like a steady pace again, John pulled his face out of the pebbles and shifted through the torrent to the body. He was weak, and the drenching had made his pantlegs heavy, but he made it close enough to look over the body. It was still where he had dropped it; not even the chest was moving.

John's mind reeled as he tried to remember the first aid that his dad had taught him long ago. He leaned his ear in front of the body's mouth, but he could hear no signs of breathing over the roar of the waves and rain. That close, though, it became clear how discolored the body's skin was. It was ash gray, free of both the patchy bruising of a corpse and any kind of living color. The sight of it made him itch to be far away, curled up in the warm comfort of his home.

John stopped himself. Death gray or not, he was still dealing with a person. He had risked his life to save them, he reminded himself. It would be stupid to give up at that point without trying.

He put a hand to the person's neck and felt for a pulse. There was none. He tried their wrist with the same result. He shifted to lean his head over their face, close enough that he could actually make out features despite his lack of glasses. They looked like a girl, John thought. They (she?) had long black hair and bright red makeup smudged all around her (he was pretty sure it was her) eyes. It was a weird color, and it stood out in stark contrast to the gray of her skin.

John took a deep breath and began singing "Stayin Alive"by the Bee Gees in his head like his dad had taught him. He pushed down on the person's chest in time with the song, counting to thirty compressions before tipping back her head and breathing air into her lungs. There was no reaction. He tried the process again with the same result. Then again. Then again. The repetitions did nothing to help.

Finally, he reached his limit. He was shivering and drenched, and the person hadn't moved at all since he first found her. He had failed. She was dead.

Thunder rumbled overhead as John fell back from his knees to the ground. He kicked himself mentally for not being fast enough, for not being able to save her. He thought of his father. He felt like a failure. The beam of the lighthouse lit up the world around John, raindrops drilling into his goose-pimpled skin with more force than he knew they could have.

He stood, pushing a lock of hair from his eyes, and scanned the beach for where he'd left his things. Once he did, he ran to grab them before returning to the body. The soak soles of his sneakers oozed and squelched between his toes.

With his glasses on, John could see just how young the dead woman was. She looked like she couldn't have been older than twenty, which put her right in John's own age range. A chill ran down his spine. The woman's eyes were closed, but he felt like she was looking at him anyway.

Thunder roared again over the sound of the waves, the sky exploding with cloud to cloud lightning. John knew he needed to get inside, but he didn't want to leave the dead woman out on the beach in the storm. He didn't like it, but he knew he had to bring her in with him.

He looked back at the shed at the other end of the beach. It would be so easy, he thought, to stash the body there, but something about that seemed cold. Had he really risked his life trying to save someone just to dump her in his shed? He didn't think so. The room at the base of the lighthouse stayed cool enough at night, so he decided he would keep her there. He'd have to find something to put under her, though. He couldn't leave a soaking wet dead body on the floor of his home.

With that decided, John took off jogging for the shed. He kept a large blue tarp on a shelf inside the door, and he grabbed it before turning around to rush back through the downpour to the lighthouse.

The moment John walked through the lighthouse door felt like walking into a warm embrace. The room at the base of the stairs was anything but cozy, but the sudden lack of pounding rain drew an involuntary sigh of relief from his lungs before he had even processed the feeling. He shook his head quickly, flinging droplets of water around the room, then knelt down and spread the tarp across the floor. Then, after a moment to steel himself, he stood up and returned to the storm.

Back outside, the shock of the freezing rush against John's skin filled him with a jolt of adrenaline. He bolted back to the dead woman, pebbles crunching under his feet as he ran. He was a little uncomfortable with the fact that he'd have to carry what he now knew was a dead body, but there was no good way around it. And anyway, he rationalized, he'd had his mouth on its mouth not five minutes ago, so this was nothing in comparison. He tried not to think too hard about that.

Once he reached the dead woman, he squatted down and slid his arms beneath her back, pulling her against his chest as he stood back up. Her weight was cold and heavy in his arms, and though he'd never carried a person bridal style before (he tried not to think about the implications of that name), he was pretty sure that this was not how it was supposed to feel. He thought he remembered reading somewhere that dead people were heavier than living ones, and it sure as hell did feel like it.

The dead woman's hair was long and thick and tangled, and the feel of it on his arm reminded John of the uncomfortable caress of seaweed on his ankles. He hurried back as fast as he could, almost slipping and falling on his face as he crossed back inside. The floor of the room was soaked in rainwater from the open door. Careful as he could be, John knelt and laid the dead woman down across the tarp. She was still smiling in that vague, absent way.

Satisfied for the moment, John decided it would no longer be rude to leave her and go dry himself off. He crossed into the house proper, being sure to shut both the door to outside and the door between the house and lighthouse as tightly as he could, then found his way to the bathroom and grabbed a towel. His hair stuck up at odd angles as he dried it, and as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, he had the brief thought that it resembled the way he used to gel it up when he was younger. It didn't stay, though. He'd let it grow too long and messy to defy gravity the way it used to. After a minute or two of effort, he gave up on getting his hair into any kind of shape besides "moppy bird's nest."

He turned to leave the bathroom when he was done, but caught himself just before he could. He was still wearing his sopping wet pants, and he knew his parents would've hated him to drip dirty water all over the white bedroom carpet. John leaned out into the hall to check that the door to the room with the dead girl was still closed. It was, so he stepped back to the middle of the bathroom and stripped off his soggy pants and underwear, hanging them from the shower to dry with the rest of his clothes. Something about being naked felt wrong, though, as if there were another person in the house that could walk in on him at any time. He felt a nonexistent gaze creep up the back of his neck, the sensation as real as if a bug had been crawling across him. He swatted for one, just to be sure, but there was nothing. He hurried to the bedroom, trying his best to ignore the lingering goosebumps.

Once he was behind the bedroom door, he was overwhelmed with a sense of relief. The room (his room, he reminded himself) was still decorated with all the same things that his mom had chosen almost twenty years previous, and her choice of colors and lights created an effect as though the room were always lit by mid-morning sunlight filtering through a white curtain. It was the room he would come to to hide from storms as a child-the one place where he felt safe from even the very worst thunder and lightning.

This time, though, things didn't go as they should have. After the initial moment of relief, the prickling discomfort returned to him. John wasted no time getting dressed. Then, once he no longer felt so exposed, he went to the old landline sitting on the nightstand. The cell service out by the lighthouse was sketchy at best, so John's dad had preferred to rely on wires. He punched in the number for his county sheriff's office and brought the receiver to his ear. There was nothing on the other end, though. The phone line must have been down.

With a sigh, John put the phone down and collapsed backward onto the bed. He hated how he felt knowing that the dead woman was there. He needed to get her out of his head. He needed to put her to rest so he could stop feeling her freaky ghost eyes and get on with the night in relative peace. He sat for a minute, fussing with his bedsheets as he tried to think of something to do for her. His only knowledge of what to do with dead bodies came from movies, and he didn't think a weekend at bernies setup was going to help his situation. Eventually, he decided he'd just have to cover her and hope for the best.

Once he'd gathered his energy, John pushed himself out of bed and down the hall to the linen closet. He dug out a clean whit sheet from the back, then turned around to look face to face (well, face to wood) with the door to the base of the lighthouse. The polished brass handle glinted at him, a reminder of the work he needed to be doing. He still had to take his weather and pressure readings and check on the light. He couldn't let his discomfort delay him any longer.

He opened the door with a creak, making a mental note to oil the hinges the next day as he did so. The woman's body was still there on the other side, prone and waterlogged just as he had left her. She was staring at him from under her closed eyes (John was pretty sure they had been open when he pulled her from the water, but he wasn't about to complain), and that same smile was still plastered on her face. John knelt and stretched the sheet over her, careful not to touch her skin. With it in place, she looked like something out of a morgue scene in a horror movie. He got up and left without looking back.

He sped through the rest of his nightly work, eager to distract himself until he could go to bed. Each time he passed near or through the base of the stairs, he could feel the dead woman's vague smile and yellowing eyes lurking under the sheet.

Finally, as he finished his final reading, the sun's rays began to spill over the horizon. Relieved, John set down his logbook and stretched. He wasn't looking forward to climbing the tower stairs and passing the dead woman, but it would all be worth it when he fell into bed.

He speed walked past the body on his way to the light, managing to avoid eye contact until he was too far up the stairs to see her anymore. He kept climbing, and even the prickles on his neck subsided by the time he reached the landing at the top of the stairs.

He climbed the ladder into the light room and put out the lamplight, taking a moment to appreciate the sight of the sunrise over the forest. The sky was dotted with wispy clouds, each one lined in sherbert orange. Behind them, the sky itself was the palest lilac-tinted gray, fading into that same orange, fading into vibrant red. That red was uncommon, deep to the point of being almost unnatural, but John couldn't deny that it was beautiful.

After a minute, though, his exhaustion overwhelmed his sense of awe, and he turned to climb back down the ladder and descend the spiraling stairs. Below the light room and its openness, the tower air had grown thick with humidity in the aftermath of the storm. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and he hurried down in search of something easier to breathe. When he passed the dead woman on the way out, he could swear he saw one of her arms shift beneath the sheet. He tried not to think too much about it. It had to be a trick of the light.

Right?

Once the door to the lighthouse was closed, John breathed a sigh of relief. Without any further delay, he walked to the bedroom, stripped down to his underwear, and collapsed into bed. The air felt much lighter down in the house proper, and it didn't take long for John to drift off to sleep.

John opened his eyes to find himself standing on the beach outside the lighthouse. The water in front of him was gray and stiller than he had ever seen it, the sky above him a featureless void of reddish black. Everything was somehow well lit despite the lack of light source, and John could clearly make out a figure floating above the water. He began to walk closer, drawn to the figure, and he recognized her as he neared. It was the dead woman.

She was hovering an inch or so above the water, her body still as anything. The closer John got to the water, the stranger she began to look. Her skin was as gray as it was when he pulled her from the ocean, and a pair of massive red ram's horns spiraled out from her skull. Her eyes were closed, but she was smiling.

John reached the waterline and found himself pulled still closer to the figure of the dead woman. He waded into the water, and to his surprise, it wasn't cold at all. In fact, he could barely feel it even as it reached his torso. Finally, as he reached chest depth, he found himself as close to her as he could get. She opened her eyes, and somehow John was unsurprised to see that her sclera were bright yellow, while her irises were jet black. She grinned, and her teeth were razor sharp. He stood there for what might have been eternity, the water lapping at John's chest as he stared at the floating dead woman. Then, without warning, she dropped.

There was a massive splash that forced him to close his eyes, and when he opened them again, the dead woman was standing in the water with him and looking very much alive. Her skin had gone tan, her eyes had gone white and brown, and the massive horns and fangs were gone. The only strange detail that remained was the bright redness of her eyelashes.

The no longer dead woman stood grinning for the briefest moment, then made a sudden grab for John's hand. She pulled it to her face as if she were going to kiss it and paused to look up and wink. It was quite possibly the weirdest eye contact John had ever made, but it seemed to make sense at the time. After just long enough to build a bizarre sense of anticipation, she pressed her lips to the back of John's hand, and the world disappeared.

John woke up with a start, his still sore muscles groaning in protest as he shot bolt upright. It took him a moment of looking around the room to realize where he was and process what had and had not been a dream. His head still foggy, he looked to the clock on the nightstand. It was a little after nine: still a while before when he had to be up.

Relieved, John collapsed back down into his sheets. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but something was stopping him, pulling him toward wakefulness. He lay there, trying to figure out what it was that felt off. Then, all of a sudden, it clicked. He could small bacon.

In most situations, bacon was one of John's favorite smells. However, for a man supposedly alone with a corpse countless miles from civilization, there were few smells that could have been more alarming. He was almost afraid to go and check what was going on.

After a minute, though, the concern overwhelmed his deep desire to not deal with whatever was going on, and he pulled himself up to sit on the edge of his mattress. He lingered a moment more, rubbing the back of his neck and licking his dry lips. They tasted like saltwater, and John remembered that he'd never showered after diving into the ocean the night before. He'd need to change his sheet; he was sure he was covered in all sorts of gross dried residue.

Once he'd gathered himself and put on some pants (people that investigated things in their underwear always died in horror movies), he stood up and made his way out of the bedroom and down the hall. As he neared the kitchen, he began to hear the sounds of sizzling in addition to the smell. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he reached the kitchen door and looked inside. There, standing in front of his stove, was the dead woman. She was frying bacon and eggs, and she looked more alive than anyone John had seen in a long time. In fact, she looked just like she had in his dream.

"Um." John said, "what the fuck?"

"Oh!" The no longer dead woman turned around, startled. She looked at John for a second, eyes wide, then broke into a massive grin. "Good morning! Do you want some breakfast?"

* * *

_Does anyone even use this site anymore? I'm reposting this from Ao3 out of habit, but I honestly don't know if it's still worth it. Anyway, here's all the original author's notes: _

_Am I aware that manned lighthouses no longer exist? Yes. Did I want to write a fic set in 2019 about a lighthouse keeper? Also yes. Therefore, this fic is set in an alternate universe where the government still hasn't finished automating lighthouses and we can all just shut up about reality and enjoy the story._

_This is lowkey the hardest I've ever worked on a fic I think, so like, I hope you guys enjoy._

_You want art to go with each chapter? You want my dumb side commentary about the characters? Find me on pillowfort __ grassycheesecake. If you don't have pf, I'll probably be reposting a fair amount of that bonus stuff to my tumblr (also grassycheesecake.) Feel free to hit me up with questions/comments here or on tumblr/pf at any time. I'd love to talk about this or any of my fics. _


	2. Fried Eggs And Frustration

John stood slack-jawed in the kitchen doorway, staring at the no-longer-dead woman. He wanted to say something, but his mouth couldn't seem to remember how to make words go. After what felt like an eternity but was probably more like a second, the woman shrugged and turned around to flip the eggs she was frying.

"You know," she said, "It's not polite to stare."

"I. You. You're supposed to be dead." John could hear his voice coming out raspy and wavering, and he wasn't sure if it was from shock, lack of use, or both. It had been a while since he'd spoken to anyone, but also, what the fuck?

"No. I don't think so." She paused, then added, "and that's kind of a rude thing to say."

"No, no you were dead last night. I checked your pulse and did cpr and everything. You were so dead your skin was all freaky and gray." John took a step into the kitchen as he spoke, but stopped in his tracks again as the formerly dead woman gave the eggs one final flip and spun around to face him with the sizzling pan in hand.

"Thank you for that, but I am very much alive, and I intend to stay that way. Where do you keep your plates?"

John blinked, taking a minute to process what she'd just said to him. "They're, uh, in the cabinet over there." He pointed at a set of cupboards across the room.

"Thanks!" She set down the pan on the non-heated burner and went to go get a plate. "Should I be getting one of these or two?"

"I-what?"

"Breakfast. Do you want any? I made too much for just me."

"Sure?"

"Great!" She pulled down two plates and set them on the counter, then retrieved the pan and plated the eggs and bacon in a motion far more graceful and effortless-looking than it had any right to be.

John crossed the room and sat down at the small kitchen table. He felt completely numb. The dead woman picked up the plates of food and set them down at the table, then lifted a hand to wave.

"Hi. I'm Aradia." She'd been smiling throughout their interaction, but she broke out into a wide grin as she spoke. She looked too happy.

"I'm… John?"

Seemingly satisfied, the no-longer-dead woman (Aradia, he reminded himself), plopped down into a chair across from him and sat watching him. An awkward silence hung for a moment, then Aradia piped up to break it. "Aren't you going to eat?"

"Aren't you?"

"I've never made fried eggs before, only scrambled. I want to see your reaction before I try them."

"Oh." A part of John's brain was screaming that eating the food when she hadn't was an almost certain fatality. She was a random stranger who had somehow resurrected herself overnight. There was no telling what she could've done to the eggs and bacon before he walked in. What if she was some sort of immortal demonic serial killer? On the other hand, though, he knew his dad would want him to be polite, and she had taken the time to make breakfast for him. He cut into an egg and took a bite.

"How is it?"

"Uh, good?" John didn't want to be rude, but he wasn't sure what to say. The eggs didn't taste like poison, but they were a little bit overdone. If anything, they were just… fine.

"You can be honest. Like I said, I've never made eggs this way before."

"Well uh, they could be a little less done. I think they're supposed to be runny in the middle still? That's how my dad always made them, at least."

"Oh, okay. Thanks." Aradia nodded and looked down to poke at the yoke of one of the eggs on her own plate. The fork came out clean, the mark of dryness. Aradia dropped her smile for just a moment, then shrugged and started eating. John moved to do the same, but caught himself before he could.

"Wait wait hold on; why are we sitting here eating eggs? You still haven't told me how the heck you came back to life. You were dead last night."

Araia looked up at him, her expression shifting to something that looked… proud? That seemed wrong, but John didn't know what else to call it. "It's simple," she said. "I made a deal."

"A deal with who?"

Aradia sighed. "Based on how you've been acting so far today, I don't think you'd believe me if I told you. I was dead, not I'm not. Does it have to be more complicated than that?" She paused for a moment, then added, "I should thank you again though. I would've been screwed if I woke up still in the ocean, so you saved my life." She leaned forward over her plate, coming close enough over the small table for John to see the red undertones of her eyes. "Thank you, really. Tell me how I can make it up to you."

"Uh-I, you're welcome." Her proximity was beginning to remind him of his dream from the night before, and part of him was afraid that she was going to try and kiss his hand. Instead, she broke out into another wide grin and slid back down into her seat.

"You don't talk to people much, do you?"

"What?" Bits of egg flew from his mouth as he spoke, and John cringed harder than he had in a long time.

"Sorry, that came out ruder than I meant it to. I never know how things sound before I say them. It just seems like everything I do surprises you."

"Oh." John looked down at his plate of food, not used to the amount of eye contact that Aradia was sending his way. Or any eye contact, for that matter. "I mean, you're not wrong I guess. I live here alone, so there's not much talking to do."

"Sounds lonely."

"No." John cut in before she'd even closed her mouth. "I like it here alone."

Aradia raised an eyebrow.

"Hey wait that's a good point actually. I live here alone, but you're cooking eggs in my kitchen." John was hit with a wave of righteous(ish) anger. He did not want to deal with this. He shouldn't have to deal with it. He didn't even like being around normal people (At least he assumed he didn't. He'd never tried it.), let alone freaky dead girls that smiled too much.

"Aren't I a special case? You did fish my body out of the ocean last night. You brought me here yourself."

John shot Aradia the harshest glare he could muster, then slumped down to hold his face in his hands. He knew she was right, but he didn't like it. He'd brought this situation upon himself, and now he had to deal with it. Out of desperation, he pinched his arm as hard as he could. Nothing. He should have known that would happen; the texture of Aradia's mediocre attempt at fried eggs was way too real to be part of a dream. At least, he thought, the bacon was pretty good.

"So do you have somewhere you can go?"

The angle of Aradia's smile dropped by several degrees. "Not really. Getting away from home is most of the reason I'm here to begin with."

"Oh."

"And anyway, I can't just leave. You saved me. I have to make it up to you, and you still haven't told me how."

"You don't have to do that."

"But, I want to." She looked earnest when she said that-very much like a normal human person and not a manic zombie. It was almost endearing. Almost.

"Why?" He wasn't sure he wanted whatever payback a freaky pseudo corpse might have for him, even if his dad had always insisted to him that a real man always repaid favors. Aradia did not look phased.

"I'm real interested in karma and causality. Like, things happen for a reason, what goes around comes around, that kind of idea. You helped me, so I want to help you. Otherwise, why am I here?"

"Fine, but you can't just stay here forever out of the blue. You're sure that there's nobody you could call and ask to stay with?" John under no circumstances wanted her lingering for any amount of time longer than what was necessary, let alone long enough to fulfill whatever "purpose" she thought she had with him.

Aradia sighed. "I guess I could call my sister."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah. I haven't interacted with her at all since she moved out a ways back, but she left me her phone number. I guess I should call her now that I'm not at home anymore."

"How long ago did she move?"

Aradia opened her mouth like she was about to speak, then closed it again and looked down at her dish. "Where should I put my plate?"

"What?"

She gestured to her empty plate. "I'm done eating. Where do you put your dirty dishes?"

"Oh. I just wash them as soon as I'm done eating usually."

"Ooh." Aradia's smile broadened again. "Responsible. I like that." She got up from the table and crossed to the sink. As she moved, John noticed for the first time just how ruined her clothes were. Her shirt was stained with dried salt residue and torn open along one side, and the bottom of her long skirt was shredded to bits. Once again, he was struck by just how bizarre his situation was. He'd just had breakfast with a former corpse.

"Anyway, she moved years ago."

"Huh?" The sound of Aradia's voice snapped John out of his trance.

"My sister. She moved out years ago. I was just about to start high school, so that would be four I guess."

"And you haven't talked to her for all that time?" John thought the idea of going that long without talking to family was quite possibly the most bizarre thing she'd said so far.

"No. She would've killed me."

"Why?"

"My sister is-" Aradia stopped for a moment and looked around. "Hey where's your soap?"

"In the cabinet under the sink."

"Thanks." She bent down to look for his dish soap, and John was struck by the thought that he was being a massive ass. Like it or not, he was a host.

"Hey, uh, you can just put that in the sink and I'll wash it."

"Oh, you're sure?"

"Yeah. Sorry I'm being a crappy host. I'm kind of in shock from all this still."

"What?" Aradia turned around to flash John a mischievous look. "You mean you've never had breakfast with a dead person before?"

John smiled a little despite himself. It'd been a long time since someone had told him a joke; he supposed he'd just lost his comedy tolerance from lack of exposure. "No, I can't say that I have," he responded.

"Well, I hope you're having fun." Aradia sat back down at the table while John shoveled the last couple bites of food into his mouth. She still wore a broad smile as she watched him, and John was beginning to suspect that manic happiness was her default state. She seemed nice enough, but it was a little creepy. He could still picture how that same smile had looked when she was dead. Not wanting to linger on her face, he got up to wash the dishes.

"You were talking about your sister?"

"Oh right, yeah. Her name is Damara, and she's kinda crazy. Like, she's pretty cool, but she hates my mom and stepdad even more than I do. She's super paranoid about them tracking her down, so she's blacklisted the entire midwest right out of her life."

"Blacklisted the entire midwest?"

"Yeah. My mom and her asshole husband live in Nebraska, so she avoids that whole part of the country. She got a new number before she left and told me I wasn't allowed to contact her at all until I wasn't living with them anymore and had a new phone. She thought they were monitoring my calls or something.

"Jeez."

"Well in her defense, they probably were."

"Oh."

"Controlling, right?" She didn't look upset about that fact, and John was pretty sure that was worse than if she had been.

"Yeah." John looked down at the dishes in the sink and realized that one thing was missing. "Hey," he called, "could you throw me that fork?"

"Sure." Aradia picked up John's forgotten fork and tossed it toward him. It looked like she didn't aim at all, though, and it flew way off to the side of the room only to swerve back through the air and land neatly in the sink. Its flight path had defied all laws of physics, and John's eyes widened in confusion. Aradia, as always, met his stare with a smile.

"Hey, uh, what?"

"What, you've never seen somebody throw a fork before?" She was smiling so wide that it looked like her grin was about to get up and jump off her face to do a shitty little smug dance.

"Okay no that was not normal. That is not how physics work."

"It is when I'm here."

John raised an eyebrow, and Aradia jumped back in before he could reply. "Here, throw it back over and I'll show you."

Not sure what else to do, he picked up the fork and threw it to the table. Aradia stared at it as he did, and the fork took a hard curve down and hit the ground far sooner than it should have.

"What the fuck?" John stared slack-jawed at Aradia for the second time that morning. "Are you doing that?"

"Yep."

"_How._"

Aradia wiggled her fingers like a little kid pretending to do magic. "I've got powers John. Spooky powers."

John bit his lip and racked his brain to try and work out what the hell was going on. Try as he might, he was coming up with no explanation as to what the fuck she could be doing to fake the effect. Then again, he thought, he was already having breakfast with a dead girl. Why shouldn't she be telekinetic? He sighed, resigning himself to the nonsensical shitshow his quiet life had become.

"You want to spooky power that fork back over to me?"

"No can do. I'm a terrible psychic." She stood up and grabbed the fork from its spot on the floor, carrying it over to the sink. "I can only influence small things that're already moving." She stepped up close to John in order to drop the fork into the sink, and though he knew she wasn't close enough to justify him being uncomfortable, he was. It had been over a year since another living person had been that close, and the sight of her standing just inches away was utterly alien.

"So, uh." John struggled to keep his voice casual as he spoke. "You need to call your sister."

"I guess, yeah."

John gestured to the living room door. "There's a phone in there."

Aradia sighed as she pushed away from the counter and followed his direction. There was a moment of sweet, familiar silence after she crossed the threshold, and then she piped up from the other room.

"You have a _landline_?"

"Uh, yeah? Cell signal is almost nonexistent out here. It's not worth paying for."

Aradia peeked her head back around the doorway. "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine. Just make your call."

She disappeared again as John finished the dishes, and John returned to breathing in the moment of solitude. He very much did not want Aradia hanging around, but from the looks of things, he had no other option. He just hoped her sister would be quick about coming to get her. From a remote lighthouse. With no prior notice.

To distract himself from that thought, he went to go look through the living room door and check on Aradia. True to her word, she was sitting on his small couch, receiver to her ear. After a long break of just the faint sound of ringing, she started talking.

"Hey Damara, it's Aradia. You know, that sister you dumped in Nebraska with mom and captain christian? I finally got out of there and I wanted to find out where you are. I'm in… hold on." Aradia covered the phone with her hand and whispered to John "Where are we?"

"We're in Washington. On the coast."

"Okay." She put the phone back to her ear. "Sorry about that. I'm staying with a friend out by the ocean in Washington right now. I know that's out of nowhere, but I'll explain later. I think I might be overstaying my welcome here soon, so I was hoping I might be able to, like, meet up with you or something." Aradia's easy smile wavered for a moment as she lowered her tone just a bit. "I miss you sis. It's been too long. I'll be here, so just call me back at this number when you get this. It's not my cell, don't worry. My friend has, get this, a landline."

Aradia shot John a wry look, and he made a show of scowling back.

"Anyway, I don't wanna take up your entire inbox, so bye. Call me back!" Aradia hung up the phone and sighed.

"No answer?"

"No, but I left a voicemail. I'm sure I'll hear back eventually if I keep calling."

"And she's your only option?"

"She's the only person whose number I know by heart. I'd need internet to talk to anyone else, and I'm not optimistic about the wifi situation here."

John shook his head. "Sorry. No internet. We had dialup years ago, but it was super slow and a big enough pain to deal with that my dad decided we were better off without it."

"Well in that case, we'll just have to wait to hear back from my sister." Aradia held her hand out toward John. "Until then, just consider me a roommate." She paused. "Or a new friend."

John didn't respond. He looked down at Aradia's hand, unsure of what she wanted him to do.

"You gonna leave me hangin'?"

"It's a handshake John. You shake my hand."

"Oh." It had been so long since John had shaken anyone's hand that he had forgotten that it was a thing people did in real life. He shook her hand, flinching a little at the unnatural coolness of her skin. Her grip was killer, her shaking motion a little bit too enthusiastic, and she held on for a little too long. She seemed earnest, though.

When she finally let go, she placed a hand on her hip and looked around the room. "So, do you have an extra room or will I have to sleep on the couch?"

John frowned. He was, in fact, one person living in a two bedroom house, so he did have an unoccupied room, but he really, really did not want to have freaky kinda dead Aradia sleeping there. He had moved into his parents' old room a few months back, but his old room was still full of his stuff. Even worse, it was full of embarrassing old teen stuff that he could barely stand to look at. Still, he also did not want a stranger sleeping in the bed that had once belonged to his parents, and he knew his dad would never forgive him for making a guest (unwanted or not) sleep on the couch because of a reason like that.

"Yeah. I have a room you can stay in, just don't mess around with my stuff too much."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"C'mon, I'll show you." John led Aradia out of the living room and around the corner that led to his childhood bedroom.

In contrast to the soft beachy colors that filled the rest of the house, the room in front of them was, although comfortable, very dark. The walls were deep royal blue, the furniture dark wood, and the bedspread a rich emerald color. Rows of shelves circled the room near the ceiling, each one covered in DVDs and notebooks, and the walls were covered in posters for those same movies. John hated looking at those posters. They oozed pure, concentrated sixteen years old at him, and it made his skin prickle. Aradia, on the other hand, looked delighted.

"I had no idea you like movies so much."

John shook his head. "I used to, but I don't anymore."

"Why not?" Aradia turned to lean against the doorframe and give him that ever present easy smile.

John shrugged. "You can only watch the same movies so many times. I got super into them back when my dad was here and I could drive into town to shop for new ones, but I can't leave this place alone to shop now, and I'm tired of everything I own."

"How long has it been since you watched any?"

"A year or so?"

"Then maybe you'd enjoy them again now that you've had a good break."

"I doubt it." John frowned. He regretted telling her as much about himself as he did, but his social graces were rusty as hell. In an effort to escape the situation, he checked the time on his watch. It was getting close to when he'd usually be getting up, so he decided it was time to shower and start his daily work.

"Hey, I have things to do. Try not to, uh, fuck anything up around here I guess."

"Oh, I won't." She winked at him. "Thank you again."

"Yeah, you're welcome." John turned and headed down the hall to begin his day, the back of his neck prickling under Aradia's eyes the whole way.


	3. What We Hide in the Attic

John buried himself in his tasks that day. He took readings with the overattentiveness of a greenhorn keeper, wiped down lenses until not a single speck of dust was left, scrubbed the windows of the lantern room as if he were trying to scrub not just the glass, but the whole world spotless. He worked quickly too, his singular focus speeding his routine to the point that he was done with his daily list and oiling the squeaky door at the base of the stairs by the time the clock hit midafternoon. Once he'd applied a liberal dose of oil to both hinges, he stepped back and closed the door. It glided soundless and smooth as anything. Satisfied, John looked at his watch.

"Fuck."

The hour hand was just past the three, which was a good two hours earlier than where he wanted it to be. Wait. No. John frowned and shook his head at his own melodrama. Things weren't that bad. Unsure of what else to do, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He hadn't seen Aradia since breakfast, after which she'd disappeared off to do who knew what, claiming she didn't want to get in the way. As if her presence around the house itself weren't a massive obstacle all on its own.

John groaned and leaned back against the newly oiled door in frustration. The door, which he had never clicked shut, flew open on its newly oiled hinges and hurled him to the ground. He groaned again, this time in pain, but made no effort to get up. He didn't want to be done with work. There were tasks he could do, of course (there always were), but those would require his going outside. He wasn't sure if maintenancing the shitty temporary launch was worth the risk of having to deal with an insane semi-zombie. He weighed his options for a moment, wondering if maybe he could justify taking off the rest of the afternoon to go hide in the bedroom. It had been a while since he'd looked over the launch, though, so he didn't think he could.

John pushed up from the floor and brushed himself off, turning away from the light tower door. He had gotten dirty from the fall, and he made a mental note to clean the floors soon. Not yet, though. He was committed to facing his fears and dragging himself outside.

Once he was out, it took no time at all for him to locate Aradia. She was facing away from him, sitting down the beach on a towel that she must've stolen stolen from John's closet. He crept over the pebbles towards the shed, testing how far he could get without her noticing and watching her hair fly like a massive black flag in the wind.

By some miracle, he reached the launch by the side of the shed without being noticed, but just as he feared, she turned her head towards him the moment he touched the loud, crinkly tarp that covered it. She waved and stood up, and John watched in horror as she rolled up her (his) towel and set off toward him. He did not want to talk to her.

"Hello!" Aradia waved again as she got close. "I hope you don't mind that I borrowed a towel."

"It's fine I guess."

"Okay, thanks." John brushed off the smile that she shot his way, and she went quiet as he finished uncovering the launch. Of course, Aradia being Aradia, she couldn't stay that way.

"So, are you going out on the water?"

"No. I just have to do some maintenance on the launch."

"Launch?"

"The lighthouse boat. It's what we use if we have to go out on the water to help people."

"Oh. Is that how you got me out of the water?"

John frowned. He hadn't, and for good reason. Just the thought of the launch out in a storm like that was enough to make him shiver. Images of his dad filled his mind, and he bit his lip as he tried to dispel them.

"No. I, um. There's some bad rocks toward the sides of our beach and I don't trust boats in storms that bad. You were close enough to shore to swim for."

Aradia looked at him eyes wide, and even John could tell that there were questions brewing in that expression. He did not want to linger on the subject, so he held up a finger, gesturing for her to hold on while he got up to fetch his toolbox from the shed. The boat was in the middle of the shed as always when he opened the door, and he averted his eyes as he grabbed the toolbox and left. He didn't want to deal with that line of thought.

Back outside, he found that had Aradia stretched out on the towel next to the launch. She smiled at him when he looked at her, but she didn't say anything until John had climbed into the launch with his tools and started to examine the motor.

"Hey, thank you again. You risked my life for me. I didn't realize before."

"It's fine. That's my job."

John pulled off a panel with a twist of his screwdriver and peered into the engine, listening to Aradia stir on the towel beside him as he did. He wasn't used to the sounds of other people.

"You know, all the wind and waves out here have some really cool effects on stuff."

"Effects on stuff?"

"Yeah!" Aradia reached into the pocket of her tattered skirt and pulled out, (oh god), a tiny bird skull. "I found this little guy on the beach earlier, and look," Aradia held the skull out toward him. "It's all smoothed out by the waves so it feels like driftwood. I've never seen this before."

John frowned deeper than usual. He was afraid that anything he opened his mouth to say would come out too rude and panicky, but she was looking at him with so much expectation in her eyes, and god, he had to say something.

"How can you touch that?" Goddammit.

"Touch what?"

"A dead body!" John's skin was crawling at the thought of picking up something dead bare handed. It was so unsanitary.

"Oh, it's just a skull. Nature already bleached it clean as anything. She smiled, wide and innocent. And besides, you spent a good part of last evening carrying around my corpse."

"Okay ew. Thanks for reminding me, but that's different." John couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten this worked up about something. "You came back fine the next day. You weren't rotting."

"Neither is this bird though. All its flesh was eaten away ages ago."

"That is the worst thing anyone has ever said to me."

Aradia pouted, and John felt bad for a moment before realizing how theatrical and obviously put on her expression was. He rolled his eyes at her and returned to the motor. Then, when he had trouble focusing, he pretended to look at the motor and watched Aradia through his peripheral vision. She'd dropped the pout after a few seconds, looking at him now with something that he thought might have been either curiosity or complete confusion. He was, he was finding, complete crap at reading expressions.

"Hey, so what are you doing?" Aradia broke the lull again, and john decided that she must've been curious after all. He filed the image of her expression away in his brain for later reference.

"I'm just checking over the motor for anything that's getting corroded."

"Corroded."

"Wear and tear. Mechanical parts break down over time, especially ones that touch chemicals a lot."

"Oh." Aradia shifted audibly on the pebbles behind him, then gave him a minor heart attack a moment later when her face popped up next to his from behind.

John took a deep breath to compose himself, wondering why on earth she was so interested in boring maintenance. "Here." He pointed to a small metal clamp attached to the motor's fuel line. "This one's starting to crack on top, so I have to replace it."

"Right." Aradia turned to face him, and John was forced to bite his lip again and try very hard not to panic at how close she had gotten. Mechanics are so interesting. It's impressive how much you know."

"Thanks, I guess, but this is all just the basic stuff that comes with the job." He paused, still pointedly not making eye contact with her. "I have to grab a replacement for this. I'll be right back."

"Okay."

John pushed himself up and stepped out of the boat. He could feel Aradia on him again, looking him over in that way she always was, and he took a deep breath as he tried to adjust to the sensation. He didn't enjoy the sensation of being watched, not by any stretch of imagination, but it no longer left him shivering with horror movie dread in the way it had not long before. He didn't even feel the need to glance behind his shoulder as he opened the door to the shed.

The skiff gave him no trouble that time, his memories all tucked back into their usual crannies, so it didn't take long for him to find the clamp he needed. He supposed that his houseguest was, if nothing else, a good distraction.

Back outside, he found Aradia sprawled out on her (his, he reminded himself) towel and staring up at the sky. She moved at the sound of the doorway though, hefting herself from the rocks to wave at him again and grin. He smiled back as best he could. He had no idea how it looked on him.

John stretched, clamp in hand, and took his own moment to watch the clouds before sitting down in the skiff and returning the brunt of his attention to the motor. Replacing the clamp was easy work, and he was quick to finish and set about greasing all the usual problem areas. Aradia loomed over his shoulder the whole time, watching him as he worked. He wasn't sure what to make of it; he could see no reason for her to act so fascinated by a simple engine repair job. He wondered if she might have an interest in the topic, though she didn't seem like the type.

"Hey, do you want to try this? This part is super easy."

"Oh no. I'm no good at working with my hands." She smiled at him (well, John supposed it was a smile), but it was lacking the air of manic glee that he had already come to expect from her

"Uh, okay." Aradia's grins had been making him uncomfortable all day, but the lack of her creepy intensity was also starting to bother him. He was worried he'd done something wrong; why else would she have reeled herself in like that? That train of thought was a lot to deal with, though, and John reminded himself that she was a short term unwanted guess and that none of this was supposed to matter. Against his impulse to help, he pulled his eyes from her and returned to his work, leaving the beach in a stifled quiet.

After a long minute, Aradia flopped back down onto her towel. John could no longer see her, but he could feel her watching him. He made a swipe of the cleaning cloth over the motor and began to pack up, and her gaze continued to prickle the back of his neck. He couldn't understand why the hell she was watching him like that if she wasn't interested in his work.

"Hey, John?" Aradia propped herself up in his direction to talk.

"Yeah?"

"Do you have any extra clothes I could wear? I'm stuck her 'til Damara calls me back, and these," she pinched up a bit of her skirt, "are all torn up and smell like saltwater."

Shit.

John frowned and side-eyed Aradia. "This whole beach smells like saltwater."

"Yeah, but in a nice way. My clothes smell like saltwater in a gross kelpy mildewy way."

"Okay." He really didn't want to give her any of his or his family's clothes, but he knew how much of a dick move it would be to leave her in one torn up, smelly outfit for multiple days in a row. "I probably have something." He stood and grabbed his toolbox. "Let me put my stuff away, then we can go look."

Twenty minutes later, John was dropping backward onto the bed in his old room, filled to the brim with absolute frustration. Finding clothes for Aradia was beginning to look impossible; she'd tried on every pair of John's old clothes, but nothing would fit her except for a couple old, oversized t-shirts and a single pair of his shittiest, stretchiest sweatpants. She was just a lot, well, wider than him. It wasn't his fault he was skinny! Still, he couldn't expect her to spend her whole stay (god he hoped it was a short one) alternating between the torn up skirt that she drowned in and his trashy sweatpants. At the rate things were going, he was pretty sure he'd be learning to sew and making her a dress out of his curtains in the name of politeness. That seemed like the kind of thing his dad would do if backed into a corner like this.

"Hey, John?"

He looked up, trying to pretend she hadn't startled him..

"Yeah?"

"You're sure the stuff here is our only option?"

John frowned. He did still have most of his parents' old clothes stored away somewhere, but he didn't think his dad's stuff would fit Aradia. Pants were the main issue, and his dad had been pretty tall, so he doubted any of his pants would fit her legs.

"I think so. There's no way any of my dad's clothes would fit you, and the only other thing would be-"

He cut himself off. He hadn't thought through what he'd started to say, and he didn't think he wanted to finish. His dad's clothes weren't the only things he had in storage, but he wasn't sure he was ready to go there.

Aradia looked at him, eyebrow raised after his sudden cutoff, and against his better judgement, he scanned her up and down, comparing her shape to the photos he'd seen of his mom. She was, he had to admit, the right size.

"Hey, are you alright? You cut off there out of nowhere."

"Yeah, uh…" John stopped himself again. He really did not want to offer up his mom's old clothes, but from what his dad had told him, he knew she'd always been generous. What if he was betraying her memory by not using her stuff to help? Did that even fucking matter?

He turned and looked at Aradia, her face some null zone between curiosity and concern that he didn't know what to make of. Her eyebrows looked thick and heavy over the warm brown color of her eyes, but it was kind of a nice framing effect. With a start, John realized that, when she wasn't giving him chills, she was actually something like pretty. He couldn't just leave her out in the cold.

John sighed. "I think I have an idea for something else that could work, but you have to be really careful with the stuff I give you, alright? And you can't ask too many questions."

"Okay, sure. I'll take anything that fits at this point."

"Right, uh, follow me to the attic then?"

"Alright."

Not wanting to say anything else, John led her out of the room in silence. The air in the hallway was heavy, but Aradia, to her credit, didn't try to make him talk. He stopped them in the hallway under the trapdoor and, much to his chagrin, had to jump up and grab at the handle in the ceiling in a damn undignified way. He could hear Aradia suppressing her laughter as he flailed through the air, but he tried not to look at her. He didn't want to know whether her laughter was mocking or warm. Given what he was making himself do, he didn't want to look at her at all.

Once the ladder was down, John took the lead again and brought them both into the attic. The air was musty, and the walls and ceiling were little more than wood and insulation, but it was by no means the worst an attic could be. At least, John didn't think it was. He didn't have much to compare to.

The far side of the room was stacked high with boxes, each one labeled with a name and/or its contents. He crossed over and examined them, trying to keep from thinking too much about what the words on the boxes really meant. After a seemingly endless minute, he found a box near the top marked with his mom's name and "clothes," and pulled it down.

"I think there might be something that fits you in here."

"Okay."

John pulled open the interlaced flaps of cardboard, trying to ignore the heaviness of the air in his lungs. He hadn't touched these boxes since he'd helped his dad pack them as a little kid. He reached in and pulled out the top item from the box he'd opened, an old black dress, and a wave of old-smelling air crashed into him all at once.

"Hey, your attic smells like an antique store."

"What?"

"It smells like an antique store up here. You know how they have that certain smell? Like, it's not quite bad, but the air feels old somehow?"

"I've never been to an antique store." He'd never been anywhere.

"Oh. Well, if your house is anything to go by, I'd say you'd like it."

"I don't keep this stuff around just because I like old things."

"Then why do you have it?"

John shot her his best depressive glare. "Remember what I said about questions?"

Aradia frowned at him, and shit. fuck. That was awful to look at. There was no way in hell he could leave things as they were.

He sighed. "I'm sorry Aradia. I'm just kind of on edge right now."

"Should I ask how come?"

There was a long beat of nothing. John breathed out heavily and ran a hand through his hair.

"Everything up here is my parents'."

Aradia closed her mouth and looked at him, eyes unreadable. He turned his head away, funneling his focus back into the box. He pulled out a blue dress that matched the black one he'd found, an old white blouse, and a pair of work pants. His mom had dressed the same way his dad did: plain-colored button shirts and pressed slacks. Even the dresses were simple buttoned things that she could work in, but though everything in the wardrobe was practical, the fabric of the clothes was soft. John reached for the next item in the box.

"They're dead, right?"

"What?"

John's throat tightened, and he clenched his fingers in an attempt to hide how much his hands were starting to shake. Dealing with this stuff head on set him off quivering like a damned chihuahua, and he was reaching the limit of what he was willing to put up with from a guest.

"Your parents. They're dead, aren't they?"

"Yeah." John bit down hard on his lip as he choked out the word, unsure of any other way to push down his building outburst. Aradia looked at him. She looked at him, and it was too much. He crumpled, curling around himself and burying his face between his knees.

"Thank you." He heard the floorboards creak as she approached him. "Even more than before, thanks. I know how people can be about mementos."

John unclenched his teeth enough to choke out "welcome."

The fabric in front of him made a soft rumpling sound in time with another creak of the boards, and he supposed aradia was picking up something that he'd unpacked.

"Here, keep facing this way and I'll try this on."

He listened to her circle around behind him, and he heard more soft sounds of fabric as she changed. He measured his breathing in an attempt to anchor himself to reality. It didn't help—his lungs were heaving and unsteady. He didn't know his mom, he barely knew anything about her, but thinking about her choked him up in a way that he didn't know what to do with. Looking at those clothes was dragging him down into his confusion like rocks on his ankles binding him fast to the bottom of a swamp.

Desperate, he tried to turn his focus to Aradia. He listened for the sound of her movements, trying to figure out how much time he had until she turned to face him. She hadn't acknowledged his breakdown yet, and under no circumstances did he want her to. He couldn't.

Somehow, that panicked attempt at repression did the trick. His heartbeat began to slow, and after a few long moments, he felt safe enough to try peeking up from his legs. There was a tiny window in the fall he was facing, and through it he could see the gleaming blue of the summer sky. It was a good blue, light and crystalline and vibrant and overall different from any other blue he saw in his daily life. It was lighter than dark water of his northern ocean, than the denim of his jeans, than the murkiness of his eyes.

"You know, I don't think death is as bad as people think it is."

John took a breath and tried to unclench the muscles of his face. To his surprise, he managed.

"Don't try to comfort me."

"Hear me out?"

He said nothing in return; he didn't want to risk it, and Aradia seemed to take his silence as an agreement. He heard the sound of a deep breath, readying her to talk, over the sound of footsteps approaching him.

"I don't think that dead people are really gone when they die, not in any meaningful sense."

John heard Aradia sit down behind him, much closer than he wanted her to be.

"I mean, they stop existing physically, so we don't get to see and talk to them anymore, and I know that's sad, but it's not like seeing and talking are all that matters about people. The dead leave a big imprint behind them."

"Ghosts aren't real."

"Incorrect, but I'm not talking about ghosts. Death is… let me backtrack."

John felt the sudden press of Aradia's back against his. She must've leaned back against him, using him like a recliner. He could not remember the last time he'd been this close to another living human being. He said nothing.

"None of us are anything significant really. We're nothing but big piles of atoms that got stuck together in the right shape to create sentience and teeth and music and everything else. We live life and get to feel things for no reason, just because it happens to have worked out that way, and that's fine! Life is still beautiful and fun and it feels meaningful when you're living it, but it's not some sacred eternal flame or whatever your sunday school teacher wants to tell you it is. When you die, it's not tragic or unjust; it's inevitable, just a return of all those atoms you were borrowing back to the greater universe."

Aradia sat up, pulling her weight from John's back, and he heard her shift around to his side. He didn't look, returning his head to his knees.

"If you believe in ghosts, then your sentience sticks around without the meat suit and all those rented atoms, but even if you don't, dead people are all around us. Bodies become worm food and nourish the grass that we look at, actions and words become memories, and clothes and belongings get sent to thrift stores. Or stashed in attics to be gifted to former fellow dead people."

"And?" John supposed she was saying something meaningful, but he did not have the mental energy to try and parse out what she was trying to communicate.

"And?" For some unknown reason, he could hear something like a laugh at the back of Aradia's reply. "And so your mother's rental period ended sooner than most people's, and that's sad, but it's not the end of the world. You have memories, don't you?"

John shook his head. "She died giving birth."

"Oh. I'm sorry, but even that's not everything gone. I'm betting someone sentimental like you has her stuff all over this house, and all those things that she bought are choices she made, which means that little bits of her old mind are still here all around you. Even this dress, which fits perfectly by the way, is a part of her that's still here with you, and now that piece of her is getting brought back out into the world to help you make new memories. Is that tragic?"

Aradia rustled next to him, but after a long moment, John realized that she wasn't going to keep talking. Her words were rattling around inside him in a way he didn't like, picking and tearing at the walls in his head that he'd only just managed to put back up minutes before. He wanted to live in her world, a world where death wasn't tragic, wasn't absolute.

"You didn't answer me."

"What?" He spoke into his knees, still avoiding looking up for fear that he might break apart.

"I asked you a question, and you didn't answer. Does death really sound that tragic?"

John frowned. For once, he really did want to answer her, but he didn't know how. He snuck a glance up at her, and her face looked far too kind to ignore. He took a deep breath, trying to gather what little dignity he had left, and he peeled his hunched knees back away from his torso.

"I'll tell you when I know." His bravado was flaking; his hands wouldn't stop their quakes.

Aradia tilted her head. She looked-John wasn't sure how she looked. Curious maybe, but a kinder, better version of it.

"You can be sad, you know. I don't mind if you are."

Dammit. John tried to look at Aradia properly, but his eyes stuck at the crisp collar of her dress. She had no right to smile and comfort him like that, not in his goddamn dead mom's clothes.

"You're not my fucking therapist."

"But aren't I your friend?"

He shook his head. "I hate you."

"No you don't." Aradia reached out and, after what might have been a moment of hesitation, placed her arm around John's shoulders and pulled him close. Her skin was cool to the touch, an ever present reminder of how recently she too had been nothing but a corpse. He hated her, hated how nice she was and how wrong she was, hated what his life was becoming.

Aradia said nothing. She held him and looked at him, the concern in her eyes so much worse than the manic creepiness he'd thought he'd hated.

Despite himself, John began to cry.


End file.
